Hi! I’m relatively new to Home Assistant and currently evaluating the setup for a home remodel. In search for good keypads to control multiple lights I keep coming back to Insteon keypads (have a few currently). I tested the integration in HA and it works quite well.
What I can’t figure out: Is it possible to detect press and hold / long press on a keypad button to adjust a dimmer via HA? I’m going to have some regular loads but most will be LEDs controlled by Shellys or similar so direct control from Insteon to Insteon is not an option
I looked through the code and only found button press or switch on / off events, no long press. Is there something I’m missing or is it really not possible?
i’m currently using a keypadlinc to control a set of skylight shades. basic on/off commands suffice most of the time to simply open and close, but ideally, i would like to detect the events when a button is pushed and held to trigger the shades to start opening and stop opening respectively so that shades could be opened part way when desired. i looked and it did not appear that the home assistant insteon integration offered any way to trigger based on insteon start/stop dimming commands from the device as would be needed to achieve this.
another example of when i think this would be useful is to use either an insteon switchlinc or a keypadlinc button to control non-insteon lights (such as hue or z-wave). this definitely seems like a situation where one would often want to be able to take advantage of the push-and-hold brighten/dim functions built-in to the switch in the way they were designed.
fwiw, i was previously able to implement these behaviors in the home automation system i used prior to moving to home-assistant (Indigo).
I am a bit confused to the question.
What are you pressing and holding? The actual switch? Or a button or something in the HA Gui?
If a light supports dimming, you can show a slider. These are all Insteon, some are on/off switches and outlets, some are dimmable lights, some are dimmable switches driving dimmable transformers for LEDs, some are hardwired fanlincs … and the “Groups” are Insteon scenes that turns on and set many lights at once.
Are you thinking of something like pressing and holding lie button “B” on a six-button dimmable switch and triggering something else to happen (by triggering automation or a script?)
Maybe for the shade you could do simple start (on) and stop (off). CLick once it starts opening and click again it stops?
I would think the issue is that the button is treated as a switch (and hence not dimmable). WIth a dimmable light I can obvious do this:
alias: Test Brightness
description: ""
trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id:
- light.switchlinc_dimmer_1e_3f_72
attribute: brightness
condition: []
action:
- service: light.turn_on
metadata: {}
data:
brightness: "{{state_attr('light.switchlinc_dimmer_1e_3f_72','brightness')}}"
target:
entity_id: light.switchlinc_dimmer_1e_3e_4a
mode: single
Which would change the brightness of one light based on the brightness of another light. I tested this at those KeypadLinc Dimmers and it does that (with say a one second lag).
kbrown01, yes i’m talking about pushing and holding an actuator on an insteon device. the actuator could be a button on a keypadLinc or a the up or down tilt of the “paddle” actuator on a switchLinc device. a switchLinc sends start bright/dim based on which side of the paddle you push (obviously), whereas for a keypadLinc button toggles back and forth between start-brighten/dim each time it is pushed.
to see an example of this working smoothly without any software involved, you can just link any two insteon switches together and see that one (responder) device is capable of following or mirroring the behavior of another (controller) device across simple on/off commands but also for other switch-activated actions including fast-on, fast-off, and start/stop dimming.
the system i was using previously as my automation controller, Indigo, allowed one to set up triggers (automations) based on when insteon start/stop dim/brighten commands were received from a device. this made it possible, for example to implement a behavior (that’s pretty typical for devices like shades) where a single push would open or close, but a push-and-hold would start opening or closing, then stop when released.
i don’t think this feature is currently supported in the insteon integration in home assistant – at least it does not seem to be mentioned in the documentation.
